Palace fury after Prince Harry widens ‘gulf’ with royal family

Royal watchers have slammed Prince Harry’s latest offensive against his family, saying he will now never reconcile with his father and brother. WARNING: Distressing content

Warning: This article discusses suicide.

Prince Harry’s latest attack on the royal family will cause fury at Buckingham Palace and leave a “huge gulf” between the “erratic” Sussexes and his family, according to royal commentators.

Royal watchers lashed out at Prince Harry’s latest public bombshell where he accused the royal family of “total silence” and “neglect” when his wife Meghan Markle was suicidal, claiming his father Prince Charles made him “suffer” as a child and he would not be “bullied into silence”.

Royal watchers called Prince Harry’s latest broadside “extraordinary”, saying it would doom any reconciliation with his father and brother.

TPrince Harry’s relationship with his family appears irrevocably broken. Picture: Apple TV

It comes as the fallout from Prince Harry’s astonishing revelations on his new Apple + documentary, The Me You Can’t See was swift.

Commentator Phil Dampier said the Duke of Sussex’s family would be “dismayed” by his expansive comments about his difficult childhood and relationship with Prince Charles.

“How much longer can he do this for?” Mr Dampier said.

“The royals will be dismayed and Charles and William will be tearing out what’s left of their hair.

“It just seems to be another day and another whinge. We need to be respectful of Harry’s mental health, of course, but you do wonder – when he is going to stop?”

Mr Dampier said Harry’s comments would have been planned for several months and that they meant any peace talks at the funeral of his grandfather, Prince Philip, were “doomed to fail”.

Prince Harry and Prince William with their family, including Princess Diana, on the balcony of Buckingham Palace in 1989. Picture: Getty Images

“It means any attempts there were after the funeral to have meaningful peace talks were pointless and doomed to failure,” he said.

Biographer Angela Levin said she was shocked by Prince Harry’s decision to share his therapy session.

“I felt watching Harry during his therapy session was a huge invasion of his privacy,” said biographer Angela Levin.

“Extraordinary that he allowed that to happen.”

And outspoken Meghan Markle critic Piers Morgan asked, “Is there no end to Prince Privacy’s victimhood tour?

Royal watchers say Prince Charles will be “dismayed” at Prince Harry’s latest attacks. Picture: AFP

“Oh FFS,” he wrote on Twitter.

“Constantly abusing his family, knowing they can’t respond, is so pathetic & cowardly. Man up, Harry – and shut up.”

When a follower accused Morgan of lacking empathy, he defended the royal family.

“What ‘empathy’ is Harry showing his family as he constantly trashes them in public? It’s grotesquely unfair (they can’t answer back) outrageously hypocritical, and he’s making millions from doing it. THAT’S appalling.”

Royal expert Richard Fitzwilliams said Prince Harry had defied the Queen by publicly airing his emotional baggage.

Mr Fitzwilliams said there is “clearly a huge gulf between the royal family and the Sussexes”, according to The Sun.

“The Queen urged that the issues be dealt with privately as a family. Meghan and Harry don’t seem to be heeding that at all,” he said.

“The other problem is that when you’re dealing with a couple who are erratic, you don’t know what’s coming.”

Prince Harry lashed out at the public’s grief over his mother’s death, saying, “You never met her.” Picture: AFP

‘SHOULD I REALLY BE HERE?’

When Prince Harry began asking himself “should I really be here?” in his late 20s, he realised he was going to have to confront the anger and grief he suffered after the death of his mother, Princess Diana.

But it wouldn’t be until a fight with his now wife Meghan Markle early in their relationship that he finally committed to undergoing therapy.

The Duke of Sussex makes the revelations in the opening episodes of The Me You Can’t See, the Apple TV+ docuseries he has executive produced with Oprah Winfrey.

Two months after the Duchess of Sussex revealed she had contemplated ending her life as she dealt with the realities of life as a member of the royal family and the racism directed at the bi-racial actor, Prince Harry shared he also had suicidal thoughts.

“I was going to have to deal with my past because there was anger there. (I) started asking questions in my late 20s ‘Should I really be here?’ and that’s when I started suddenly going ‘You can’t keep hiding from this.’”

The Me You Can’t See is a new docuseries co-created by Oprah Winfrey and Prince Harry to explore mental health and emotional wellbeing. Picture: Apple TV+

Harry is a looming presence in the first three episodes of the series which he made with Winfrey to promote conversation about mental health via sharing his own experiences and those of Winfrey and others including Lady Gaga, American basketballers including DeMar DeRozan and Olympic boxing champion Virginia Fuchs.

In the second episode Asking For Help, the Prince reveals to Winfrey that his future wife suggested he “needed to see someone” when she witnessed his flashes of anger during a fight.

“And in that argument, not knowing about it, I reverted back to 12-year-old Harry,” Prince Harry said.

While the Duke often references feeling trapped by the royal “institution” and the harsh glare of the media spotlight, throughout the series he constantly refers back to his mother’s death and frustrating inability to “process” it with his family.

Prince Harry says he wants to break the cycle of the “genetic pain” entrenched within the royal family. Picture: Apple TV

Against a backdrop of footage of Princess Diana battling the paparazzi scrum which surrounded her car every morning when she drove the princes to school, Harry shared the reality of his life in the eye of that storm.

“I always wanted to be normal as opposed to Prince Harry, just being Harry,” he said.

“It was a puzzling life. Unfortunately when I think about my mum, the first thing that comes to mind is always the same one over and over again.

“Strapped in the car, seatbelt across, with my brother in the car as well and my mother driving, being chased by three, four, five mopeds with paparazzi on and she was almost unable to drive because of the tears. There was no protection.

Prince Harry said her has battled with the trauma of his mother’s death for years. Picture: Narelle/Autio

“One of the feelings that comes up with me always is helplessness. Being too young, being a guy, but being too young to be able to help a woman, in this case, your mother. And that happened every single day. Every single day until the day she died.”

Being forced to grieve in front of the world as he walked behind her hearse as a 12-year-old boy compounded his anger and planted the seed that he didn’t want a Royal life.

He shared his vivid memory of the sound of the horses’ hoofs clacking against the red bricks of The Mall as he and Prince William, both in shock, weathered the outpouring of the grief of millions even as they had to remain dignified and stoic.

“It was like I was outside of my body and just walking along doing what was expected of me, showing one tenth of the emotion that everybody else was showing,” he said.

“’This is my mum, you never even met her!’”

“I was so angry with what happened to her and the fact that there was no justice, at all, nothing came from that. The same people that chased her into the tunnel photographed her dying on the back seat of that car.”

Prince Harry said he decided he would not speak about his mother to anyone because it was too painful and it wouldn’t bring her back.

He found royal duties emotionally exhausting because of the anxiety he suffered performing his role; they escalated to severe panic attacks between the ages of 28 to 32.

He admits he self-medicated to avoid dealing with his past.

“I was willing to drink, I was willing to take drugs, I was willing to do the things that made me feel less like I was feeling,” he said.

“But I slowly became aware that OK, I wasn’t drinking Monday to Friday but I would probably drink a week’s worth in one day on a Friday or Saturday night. And I would find myself drinking not because I was enjoying it but because I was trying to mask something.”

Prince Harry says an argument with Meghan pushed him to seek therapy. Picture: supplied

Prince Harry said committing to therapy had saved his and his wife’s life. And while he may have confronted the anger of his past, the series shows he still harbours resentment of the “institution” and his family for insisting he and Meghan should have continued to live in the UK as working Royals.

“Therapy has equipped me to be able to take on anything; that is why I am here now, that’s why my wife is here now,” he said.

“That feeling of being trapped within the family is … there was no option to leave.

“Eventually when I made that decision for my family, I was still told ‘You can’t do this.’

“Well, how bad does it have to get until I am allowed to do this? She was going to end her life … it shouldn’t have to get to that.”

The Me You Can’t See, executive produced by Oprah Winfrey and Prince Harry, now streaming on AppleTV+.